Fall Away
by SaraStar
Summary: Saracentric. "You made up your mind to leave it all behind. Now you're forced to fight it out." Sara's past comes back to haunt her, when she receives a letter from her mother.
1. Maybe You Should Run

**_I have no idea why I'm starting another story, while I have so many unfinished fanfics running. I guess it's because I can't stop it - once a new idea for a story pops into my head, I have to write it out. So here you go, my new fic. It'll be a Sara story, but there'll be some Sandle too (because I just can't help myself...). I'll be using parts of the song 'Fall Away' by The Fray for the chapter titles. So I don't own those lyrics, neither do I own Sara, Greg or anyone else at the Las Vegas Crime Lab. _**

For now, enjoy (I hope).

Eva

* * *

Fall Away

Chapter One // Maybe You Should Run

She stared at the white envelope in her hands. It had been lying in her locker for almost a week now and still she hadn't found the courage to open it. Everyday when she finished working, she would open her locker and see the envelope lying there. She would pick it up, stare at it for a few minutes, wondering why she had received this and what could be written in the letter inside of it. But she wasn't sure if she wanted to know it.

For nearly her entire life she had tried to leave this behind. And even though the memories were still hiding somewhere in the back of her head, they didn't come out to haunt her as often as they used to. She had closed a door to that part of her life; a door with a crack here and there, but it was thick enough to keep the cold wind outside. So she was terrified that opening this letter would mean that the door seperating her from her past was opened as well. And she could only imagine what the consequences of that were…

She slowly moved her finger over the dreaded, but familiar stamp in the left corner of the envelope. Part of her was screaming out of crave to get to know what the letter was telling her, while the other part told her to rip it to pieces, to burn it to ashes, to destroy it and never think about it again. This internal conflict with herself drove her mad; she needed someone to decide for her. She couldn't decide it herself, with the two parties screaming through each other.

_Open it. Don't. Open it, it might be important. Don't, just forget it. OPEN IT. _

She was about to throw it away - not because she had agreed with the don't-open-it party, but just out of frustration for not knowing what to do - as she heard someone enter the locker room.

"Sara?"

She recognised that voice immediately. It sounded slightly worried, but yet warm and symphatically. The kind of the voice she needed at the moment. She straightened her shoulders, not until now realising that she had been sitting with her forehead pressed against her locker. Quickly, she brushed a hand through her messy hair.

"Oh… hey Greg…" She curled her lips into a brave attempt to a smile.

"Are you… okay?" he asked. There was slight concern visible in his usually sparkling and happy brown eyes.

She was about to give a quick nod and an assurement that she was "just tired of working so hard", but for some reason she couldn't lie to Greg. She knew his concern wasn't just out of curiosity or politeness, but because he really cared about her being okay. So she shrugged her shoulders and sighed.

"Not really."

He inched closer and sunk down next to her on the bench. His eyes caught sight of the letter she had dropped on the floor. He pointed at it, with a questioning look at his face.

"What…?"

She picked up the envelope and stared at it for a second, before handing it to Greg. He took it from her and his eyes read the adress and automatically got drawn towards the stamp in the left corner. But instead of giving her a strange look for this, he looked at her gently and said: "What's going on?"

She dropped her glance and he immediately added: "Only if you want to talk about it, of course. No pressure."

His voice made her feel safe. She knew she could trust him. Fully trust him. But how was she going to explain this to him? She'd have to start from the beginning. A beginning she didn't want to start from, ever again.

"I guess it's gonna be a long story," she mumbled, sounding braver than she felt.

He smiled. "We have time."

She took a deep breath, grasping for the courage she was soon going to need desperately. Then, softly, she began to speak. "Well… you're probably wondering why I get a letter from jail."

As there came no confirmation from Greg, she assumed he didn't want to interrupt her. She was glad he didn't.

"Well, the thing is…" She cleared her throat, hoping to win time. As if she was trying to push the moment she'd have to say the words away from her as long as possible. But if she realised she couldn't keep on running around it. "… My mum… she's there."

She kept looking down at her feet, but she could somehow feel the moment of shock in Greg's face when he heard what she said. But once again, he stayed silent. She remembered her once told her he 'was a good listener'; well, now she could fully agree with him in that.

"And now you're probably wondering why she's in there. It's… something happened… long ago…" She closed her eyes for a slight second, then she continued. "When I was little, my dad… he had bad tempers. He would come home and you never knew what his mood could be… I mean, when he was in a good mood, he was very nice, but when he wasn't…"

She realised her hands holding the letter were shaking. Greg apparently noticed this too, because all of a sudden he moved his hand to hers, covered it and squeezed it tightly. From under her eyelashes, Sara glanced at him. His eyes were filled with worry.

"Well, when he wasn't, he'd… go after us. My mum, usually. But my older brother and I couldn't stand to watch him when he…" Her voice broke down. She swallowed a few times, trying hard to hold back the tears that badly wanted to leave her eyes. "Well, when he did that to my mum. So we'd try to help her, but that always made him go even crazier…"

For the first time in the conversation, Greg spoke up. "Did he… hurt you too? Your brother and… and you?"

She didn't respond, but hung down her head even lower. She knew he had understood that the answer to his question was a confirmation, though. He tightened the grip to her hand even more and she sighed, going on from where she had stopped. Because, did she realise miserably, the hardest part of her hard story was yet to come.

"So that's… how we lived. To strangers we looked like a happy family, but they didn't see what… what happened back at the house."

"And you never told anyone? None ever found out?"

Now Sara laughed; a short, miserable laugh that sounded more like a sob. She remembered the oh so familiar 'bumped-into-a-cabinet', 'fallen-off-the-stairs', and 'walked-into-a-door' lies her mother made up for the nurses and doctors that took care of them after her father had had one of his 'moods'. Each of them so ridiculous that she was surprised the hospital staff fell for them, everytime again.

"No. My mum knew enough lies to cover every injury when we were at the hospital," she said, once again wondering how her words could come out this brave, when in fact she felt so scared. "But one night when I was around twelve…"

She didn't finish her sentence. There was such a silence that she wondered if they both were still breathing. Greg moved closer to her, and said: "What happened that night?"

"I was already asleep, but I woke up because I heard my mum scream. So got out of bed and went to the hallway… and there…"

Now she was shaking uncontrollably. She saw the image of that night in front of her like it were yesterday. As if she were actually twelve years old, walking out of her bedroom, barefoot, in her pyjamas. The scream of shock that left her mouth when she saw what had happened.

"My mother… had killed my father."

She heard Greg's faint gasp after she had spoken those words. The lump in her throat was aching; she knew she couldn't fight the tears much longer. But she _was not_ going to cry. She had already lost it when she told her story to Grissom. It _was not_ going to happen again.

Suddenly she felt Greg's hand on her back, then he wrapped an arm around her shoulders. She swallowed hard, then turned to look at him. "I'm so sorry, Sara…" he said softly.

She nodded, as a sign of gratitude. They sat there for a very long time. When Sara had calmed down a little, she sat straight up again (as she did this she felt a wave of embarrassment realising that she had been hanging onto Greg all the time), brushing her hair out of her face. She picked up the envelope that had fallen out of her lap.

"I received this last week, but I… I haven't dared to open it yet…" she mumbled.

"No, I can imagine." He gave her an understanding smile.

"But I'm not sure if I want to know what it says."

"That's only going to stop once you know what it says."

She looked up at him, he shrugged. "I mean… that makes sense right?"

Sara laughed. "I guess it does."

"Do you want me to leave while you open it?"

She shook her head quickly. "I'd rather… you stay here."

"Alright, then I stay here." He smiled, then nodded at the envelope.

Sara looked at it. Her eyes went from the adress back to the prison stamp. Then she firmly ripped open the envelope and pulled a small letter out of it.

* * *

**There. The first part. Hope you liked it. Let me know your opinion. :) Thanks for reading!**


	2. Maybe You Should Wait

**It's been way too long. I have been a little bit out of the fanfiction writing for a while, because of school. But now that I have summer vacation I suddenly felt like taking it up again. I have no idea if anyone is still reading this story, but I want to finish what I started anyway. Enjoy it, I hope. Love, Eva**

* * *

**Chapter Two / Maybe You Should Wait**

Sara was scared. She hated that, because she wasn't the kind of person who'd easily fear something. The only times that she had really been afraid were the times when her life had been endangered seriously: that time three years ago in the mental institution, when a patient had locked her up in a room, pulled her down to the floor and held a piece of glass against her throat. In her memory it all went extremely fast, but she did remember the terror in her stomach and the voice in her head that kept on telling her: "Stay calm, Sara, stay calm." Most of all did she remember looking at her boss Gil Grissom, at the other side of the glass window. The expression at his face Sara would never forget. It was one of fear and despair; she had never seen that face of Grissom before and she believed she would never again. And then there was the abduction, not long ago from now. Remembering how she had been lying there, crushed under the car, with the water rising up to her chin still sent shivers down her spine.

And now she was here. She sat with her legs crossed on a wooden bench, surrounded by other waiting people. She had taken the place in the corner, furthest away from the other seats, so she wouldn't have to face anyone. Her hand palms felt sweaty. From under her eyelashes she glanced at the clock on the wall. The appointment was at five, but she had come here way too early. Strange actually, considering the fact she'd give anything not to go in now that she was sitting here. But the nerves had somehow made her leave home early, resulting in her having to wait for half an hour more. How was she going to survive these thirty minutes?

Her mother's letter appeared in her head again. She and Greg had been sitting on that bench in the locker room for what to her had felt hours. She had read the letter so many times that she knew it all by heart.

_My Sara,_

_I've been staring at this blank paper for almost an hour, wondering how to tell you this. It's been so incredibly long since the last time I saw you; you were only a kid. Now you're a grownup, a woman, and I don't even know what you look like, what you do for a living, if you're married, if you have children… things every normal mother knows about her daughter._

_I'm not normal, Sara, I know that. I know that terrible things happened between us, and that it's my fault I don't know anything about your life and that I haven't been able to watch you grow up. But the reason for this letter might be a chance for me to make it right. _

_Sara, I'm getting out of jail next week. It feels crazy to write this. I don't even remember what it feels like to be free. But next week I'm getting out. There's not much that I still wish from this life, except making it up to you. I need to know we're okay. And that's why I want to ask you to come visit me in prison one of these days. It's a lot to ask from somebody whom you haven't seen since she was 12 years old, I know that, but I hope you're willing to give me a chance. _

_I've thought of you every day that I've been in here. You have never left my mind - I'm not certain whether I'm still in yours, though._

_All my love,_

_your mother Laura_

The words had taken an awfully long time to make their ways to her brain and be understood. The letter expressed regret and apology. Why? She had never blamed her mother for anything. True, she had never been eager to make contact with her, ever again, since it'd bring back all of the horrid things they had gone through together, but she had never looked at it and seen her mother's fault in everything. She made a mistake in judgement for having married the guy, but how could she have known that a few years later he'd start drinking and beating the crap out of his own family? Unfortunately there was no way of telling if a man was still going to be a good man after a long time; after her relationship with Hank, whom she had really trusted and loved in vain, Sara of all people should know that...

'_You have never left my mind - I'm not certain whether I'm still in yours, though._' Well, what else did she expect? Did she really think Sara could just ban her mother out of her mind? Yet somehow Sara was unable to picture her face. She did remember her voice (especially the screams, which, she feared, would never leave her mind), her body and her way of walking. But her face was a blur.

In her mind she played the scene that was soon going to happen. How she'd enter the room and sit down opposite to her mother. Her mother, whom she hadn't seen since she was twelve years old. Her mother who had killed her father, to protect herself and her daughter. She couldn't believe the fact that in half an hour she'd sit in front of her again. Being able to talk to her, to touch her. It scared her; not the same fear of those near-death experiences, but fear in a completely different way. Fear of how seeing her mother might bring back all of the things that they had lived through together. Fear of what the hell she was going to say to her mother. Fear of what would happen once her mother was out of jail.

Twenty minutes to five. Sara squirmed in her seat. God, it was stuffy in here. Her eyes went past the other people. A guy right in front of her met her glance. She quickly dropped her face, hiding behind her brown curls again. None said anything. The only sound was from the ticking clock, the sighs every now and then and the annoying tapping of feet on the floor. She felt as if she was suffocating; she needed air desperately. She stood up and walked over to the door to the bathrooms. Here it was a little cooler and she eagerly breathed in the fresh air. Then she bent over the sink and let water stream across her face. She hoped it'd help her calm down. It didn't, though. She turned off the water and dried her face. Then she stared at herself in the mirror.

Did she look like her mother? She couldn't remember if they had been told to look similar often. She wondered if she was soon going to look at the exact picture of herself when she would enter the room.

The room. Soon. It bounced through her head. She checked her watch. Fifteen minutes to five. The time seemed to pass slower with the second. She wished it was just five o'clock right now. And at the same time she wished it'd just be hours and hours away.

She pressed her forehead against the cold bathroom wall and put her hands next to it. She took a deep breath in and exhaled slowly. Oh, how she wished Greg was here right now. It was her own fault that he wasn't, though; he had insisted that he go with her, but she had refused. Eventually he had accepted that she 'needed to do this herself' and let her go alone. And now she cursed at herself for being so 'brave'; she didn't want to be brave. She wanted to crawl into Greg's arms and be held by him. She wanted him to whisper that everything was going to be okay, even if it wasn't.

She was shocked up out of her thoughts when the door opened. She quickly pulled her head away from the wall and stood up straight. The middle-aged woman who had been sitting next to her all the time entered. She nodded at Sara while passing and disappeared in one of the stalls.

Sara sighed. She thought she had found a place for herself for a second, but it had been disturbed. Hastily, she brushed a hand through her hair (making it more messy than tidy as she had intended) and then pulled the door open again. The atmosphere in the waiting area was still completely the same. She walked back to her seat.

Ten minutes to go. Her stomach was making strange turns by now. With her eyes she followed the second-hand of the clock, until it made her dizzy.

All of a sudden, a door opened and an officer appeared in the doorway. "Miss Sidle?"

Sara froze up. Automatically her eyes went to the clock again. Five to five! What about the five minutes she had left? It wasn't time yet. She knew it was absolutely ridiculous, but she had embraced those five minutes with her entire body. And now they were taken from her.

Oh well, maybe it was for the best. She felt as if she could throw up from nervousness any second, so it was better to get it over with.

She rose from her seat. "Yes, that's me."

* * *

**To be continued soon. Reviews are welcome!**


End file.
